Artelia excels in the design of breakwaters, moles and jetties. Since inventing the Tetrapod armouring blocks in the early 1950s, Artelia has developed particularly innovative solutions in the field of coastal defence techniques by introducing a much more economical single-layer armouring technique, the ACCROPODE™ block, in the early 1980s, followed in the late 1990s by the ECOPODE™ block, which blends in with the site environment and, most recently, the new-generation ACCROPODE™ II.

These developments are the outcome of ongoing R&D work, capitalising on lessons learned from more than 300 structures that have already been built (or are in service) and scale model experiments at Artelia’s hydraulics laboratory. Artelia proposes an array of safe, economical solutions to protect the most highly exposed maritime structures through its subsidiary CLI.

The area in the south of the port of Constanta being exposed to waves coming from the east, the project made it possible to reduce wave disturbance inside the port by extending the main protection breakwater.